MATTHEW 27:32-44 DISGRACING THE SON OF GOD

Written by , Rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia
 

³² As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. ³³ They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). ³⁴ There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. ³⁵ When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. ³⁶ And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. ³⁷ Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ³⁸ Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁹ Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads ⁴⁰ and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”
⁴¹ In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. ⁴² “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. ⁴³ He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” ⁴⁴ In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

The physical burden on this sleep-deprived and mutilated man was incredible. He was forced to walk uphill through crowded, rough-stone paved lanes carrying the instrument of his own agonizing death. And only so that the spectacle could be completed did the soldiers force someone to help him with his cross. But the spitting, the cursing and the humiliation continued for the entire final journey. What a strange ending to that royal procession that began on the Mount of Olives with the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. What a strange throne he was to ascend.

As heavy as the obvious physical burden involved in the ordeal, there was an even more oppressive burden that Jesus bore. Being isolated can drive a human being crazy, but being alone in a hostile crowd is simply smothering. With the exception of a handful of crying women, and who would pay any attention to them, the crowd was a monolithic mill stone having Jesus alone as its grist. The soldiers, the Roman authorities with their mocking sentence, the passersby, the chief priests, the teachers, the elders and even those criminals about to die with him, all mocked Jesus as he suffered and died. They used his own words to mock him and suggested that he was abandoned by God. Suspended between heaven and earth on that cruel cross, Jesus alone “was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5).

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote:

⁴ It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, ⁵ who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, ⁶ if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace (Hebrews 6:4-6).

The writer is speaking of the denial of the faith, but when we disobey God and are indistinguishable from the world are we not in the place of the mockers of Jesus on the cross? The effect of our unrepented, even self-justified sin is to subject Jesus to public disgrace.

May my actions today, and in the days to come, not disgrace you in the eyes of the world, my Lord. Help me to take the consequences of my sins as seriously as you did on the cross. Amen.

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